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Nora Fries
Nora Fries is a fictional character from DC Comics and a supervillainess enemy of Batman known as Lazara. She is the wife of villain Mr. Freeze, and is introduced in Batman: The Animated Series. History on Batman: The Animated Series After marrying Victor Fries, a cryogenics researcher working for GothCorp, the couple lives happily until Nora is diagnosed with an incurable and terminal illness. Fries uses the company's equipment to cryogenically freeze his wife until a cure can be found. But GothCorp CEO Ferris Boyle cuts the funding and later goes into Fries's laboratory to shut down the project personally with some security guards. According to “Heart of Ice” and “The Batman Adventures Holiday Special”, Nora is presumed dead after the resulting scuffle which destroys the lab. But Nora is still alive within her chamber, which is soon recovered by theme park mogul Grant Walker. Victor, who has by then become Mr. Freeze, eventually retrieves Nora's chamber and keeps it in his cave in the Arctic until Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, when Nora's chamber is broken. No longer frozen, Nora does not have long to live. In desperation, Freeze bribes an old colleague into helping Nora. This leads to Freeze hunting down Barbara Gordon, one of the few women on hospital records with Nora's rare blood type. Freeze plans to use Barbara for a fatal organ transplant to save Nora, but Batman intervenes. Nora is ultimately cured by Dr. Francis D'Anjou of Wayne Enterprises. According to The New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort", Nora waits for the missing and presumed dead Freeze for some time before she decides to remarry her doctor. This subplot is expanded in Batman Adventures, a comic series based on Batman: The Animated Series. The web cartoon Gotham Girls also reveals that Nora has a younger sister named Dora. Dora is very close to Nora and hates Victor Fries for keeping her sister in a coma. Dora's campaign against costumed vigilantes and villains results in her becoming one herself in the series finale. By the time of Batman Beyond, Nora is not seen; however, when Mr. Freeze (whose frozen body slows his aging to an almost immortal level) returns to his normal human self of Victor Fries in the episode "Meltdown", he starts a Nora Fries Foundation in memory of his wife. Nora Fries never has a voice actress; in her only appearances in the animated series, she is always unconscious (usually floating in the cryogenic tank) and, she is only seen awake in photographs and in issues of Batman Adventures. Jason Hall, who wrote her appearances in Batman Gotham Adventures #51 and Batman Adventures #15 establishes Nora as being a scientist herself. Nora's personality and reason for her devotion to Victor is further developed in that issue. Nora feels guilty over the fact that Victor neglects his condition while tending to her own, which results in his body deteriorating to only a head. Nora's new husband, Francis D'Anjou, is jealous of the love Nora still has for Victor and hides all of the letters that Victor sends to her. Once Nora finds out that Victor still cares, after finding one of the letters, she tries to pursue him. Nora is shown to be extremely in love with Victor and she very quickly sees past the fact that Victor is only a head and tries to make things work out, but Victor's past as Freeze keeps it from happening. Comic history Falling ill Nora is an attractive and gentle girl. She meets Victor Fries in a strict boarding school, and later marries him. Shortly after their marriage, Nora falls terminally ill. Victor discovers a way to put Nora into cryostasis, hoping to sustain her until a cure can be found. In time her husband will become one of Batman's well known enemies, Mr. Freeze. Over time she falls to pieces in her ice state, but Freeze puts her back together again. Lazara Freeze helps Nyssa al Ghul by creating a machine for the Society that can also be used to capture Batgirl. In return, Nyssa helps him restore his wife using the Lazarus Pit. Because of all the years of being altered and broken, Nora absorbs the pit's alchemy, acquiring the powers to conjure flame and reanimate the dead. Calling herself Lazara, she becomes a supervillainess. Powers and abilities After emerging from the Lazarus Pit, Nora Fries becomes Lazara. Lazara is a supervillainess who can summon fire and raise the dead. She blames her husband, Victor Fries, for her transformation. In other media ''Batman & Robin'' Nora Fries is played by supermodel Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen in the movie Batman & Robin. She is cryogenically frozen throughout the movie, and the only lines she has are in her and Mr. Freeze's wedding video. In this film, her disease is the fictional MacGregor's Syndrome. Batman reveals that she has the most advanced stages of this disease, for which Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has yet to find a cure. At one point in the movie, Poison Ivy, who is infatuated with Mr. Freeze and his powers, pulls the plug on Nora’s machine in an attempt to kill her and gain Freeze’s affections. She fails. Nora lives, and Batman has her sent to Arkham Asylum so that Mr. Freeze can continue his research for a cure during his imprisonment there—Freeze also uses this opportunity to exact his revenge on Ivy for trying to kill his wife. ''The Batman'' Nora also appears in the episode of The Batman "The Big Freeze". In the episode, she is briefly shown in pictures in her husband's (or boyfriend's as may be the case) car before the accident that turns him into Mr. Freeze. References External links *Nora Fries at the DC Database *Dora Fries at the DC Animated Universe Wiki Category:DC Comics supervillains Category:DC Comics witches Category:DC animated universe characters Category:Magic users in comics Category:Fictional cryonically preserved characters Category:Fictional necromancers Category:Fictional elementals Category:Fictional characters who can manipulate fire Category:2006 comics characters debuts